Most people who complain about how horrible the world is have never really had it hard. I don't care that you grew up in the ghetto. My grandma grew up listening to British bombers blasting crap all night, then seeing Russian dive bombers hitting a ship full of wounded men, and listening to them scream as it went down. I never hear her bitch about life and I never hear her gripe about God not stopping people from doing evil things that she saw with her very eyes.

When life really does suck, people always seem to either focus on the good or cut the talk and grab the Glock.

This post deserves some kind of recognition.

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Quote from: GabrieltheCelt

If you spend long enough on this forum, you'll come away with all sorts of weird, untrue ideas of Orthodox Christianity.

Quote from: orthonorm

I would suggest most persons in general avoid any question beginning with why.

Most people who complain about how horrible the world is have never really had it hard. I don't care that you grew up in the ghetto. My grandma grew up listening to British bombers blasting crap all night, then seeing Russian dive bombers hitting a ship full of wounded men, and listening to them scream as it went down. I never hear her bitch about life and I never hear her gripe about God not stopping people from doing evil things that she saw with her very eyes.

When life really does suck, people always seem to either focus on the good or cut the talk and grab the Glock.

I don't think you can repress transsexualism without going insane, while a homosexual can be celibate just as easily as a heterosexual.

What's to be repressed? Transsexualism is not an orientation in itself; there are homosexual transsexuals and (belief it or not) heterosexual transsexuals. I think you are confusing "gender" for sex; the two are not the same thing.

They aren't the same any longer because people muddy the waters. They used to be the same.

No, they aren't the same any longer because we no longer confuse biology and culture.

Corrected.

Muddy waters...

No...THIS is Muddy Waters:

And if you're not familiar with his music, how can you call yourself an American??

I don't think you can repress transsexualism without going insane, while a homosexual can be celibate just as easily as a heterosexual.

What's to be repressed? Transsexualism is not an orientation in itself; there are homosexual transsexuals and (belief it or not) heterosexual transsexuals. I think you are confusing "gender" for sex; the two are not the same thing.

They aren't the same any longer because people muddy the waters. They used to be the same.

No, they aren't the same any longer because we no longer confuse biology and culture.

Corrected.

Muddy waters...

No...THIS is Muddy Waters:

And if you're not familiar with his music, how can you call yourself an American??

Chris Beck spent 20 years operating in secret behind enemy lines as an elite US Navy Seal. But the highly decorated serviceman was always hiding a deeper, personal secret - since early childhood, he felt he was a female born into a male body.

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Conquer evil men by your gentle kindness, and make zealous men wonder at your goodness. Put the lover of legality to shame by your compassion. With the afflicted be afflicted in mind. Love all men, but keep distant from all men.—St. Isaac of Syria

Chris Beck spent 20 years operating in secret behind enemy lines as an elite US Navy Seal. But the highly decorated serviceman was always hiding a deeper, personal secret - since early childhood, he felt he was a female born into a male body.

Wow! He/she did some pretty "manly" stuff for being a "woman", er, a..well...whatever. (Apologies for stereotyping?) Guess there's hope yet for women being admitted to special forces and SEAL training.

Wow! He/she did some pretty "manly" stuff for being a "woman", er, a..well...whatever. (Apologies for stereotyping?) Guess there's hope yet for women being admitted to special forces and SEAL training.

That's not that rare among transsexuals. Some try to dive into hypermasculine personas hoping it will get rid of their intense gender dysphoria, but it usually doesn't work. One of the first public transsexuals in Britain was a former race-car driver and adventurer.

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"I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God's hands, that I still possess." - Martin Luther

Wow! He/she did some pretty "manly" stuff for being a "woman", er, a..well...whatever. (Apologies for stereotyping?) Guess there's hope yet for women being admitted to special forces and SEAL training.

That's not that rare among transsexuals. Some try to dive into hypermasculine personas hoping it will get rid of their intense gender dysphoria, but it usually doesn't work. One of the first public transsexuals in Britain was a former race-car driver and adventurer.

Chris Beck spent 20 years operating in secret behind enemy lines as an elite US Navy Seal. But the highly decorated serviceman was always hiding a deeper, personal secret - since early childhood, he felt he was a female born into a male body.

And he is still a he.

"I know who I am! I'm a dude, pretending to be a dude, disguised as another dude!"

You don't really hope they "find Jesus." Your posts following that one made it clear that you see them with nothing but contempt and judgement. You were using that lovely language of Christian-ese to make a judgement on them. You have no clue as to whether or not they are Christian. You assume they are not. It is quite possible they are closer to living a Christian life than you are. If you want to judge/condemn them, at least have the integrity not to involve Christ in it. Because you are a sinner right along with them. And you are in need of "finding Jesus" just as much as they are.

You don't really hope they "find Jesus." Your posts following that one made it clear that you see them with nothing but contempt and judgement. You were using that lovely language of Christian-ese to make a judgement on them. You have no clue as to whether or not they are Christian. You assume they are not. It is quite possible they are closer to living a Christian life than you are. If you want to judge/condemn them, at least have the integrity not to involve Christ in it. Because you are a sinner right along with them. And you are in need of "finding Jesus" just as much as they are.

What is laughable is you doing to me what you feel I was doing to them.

You don't really hope they "find Jesus." Your posts following that one made it clear that you see them with nothing but contempt and judgement. You were using that lovely language of Christian-ese to make a judgement on them. You have no clue as to whether or not they are Christian. You assume they are not. It is quite possible they are closer to living a Christian life than you are. If you want to judge/condemn them, at least have the integrity not to involve Christ in it. Because you are a sinner right along with them. And you are in need of "finding Jesus" just as much as they are.

+1

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All opinions expressed by myself are quite tragically my own, and not those of any other poster or wall hangings.

Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

I think we -all- need to be careful about pointing out the sins of others, even ones we believe are such obvious sins. This is my personal opinion, but to me, the louder and harder that we continue to do such things, the smaller and smaller the beam in our own eye seems to us.

Our righteous indignation over the sins of others, makes us start ignoring our own, because 'this can't possibly be as bad as THAT', and we stop trying to repent.

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All opinions expressed by myself are quite tragically my own, and not those of any other poster or wall hangings.

Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

I think we -all- need to be careful about pointing out the sins of others, even ones we believe are such obvious sins. This is my personal opinion, but to me, the louder and harder that we continue to do such things, the smaller and smaller the beam in our own eye seems to us.

Our righteous indignation over the sins of others, makes us start ignoring our own, because 'this can't possibly be as bad as THAT', and we stop trying to repent.

Would you say the same thing if someone condemned a sin?

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Quote from: GabrieltheCelt

If you spend long enough on this forum, you'll come away with all sorts of weird, untrue ideas of Orthodox Christianity.

Quote from: orthonorm

I would suggest most persons in general avoid any question beginning with why.

Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

I think we -all- need to be careful about pointing out the sins of others, even ones we believe are such obvious sins. This is my personal opinion, but to me, the louder and harder that we continue to do such things, the smaller and smaller the beam in our own eye seems to us.

Our righteous indignation over the sins of others, makes us start ignoring our own, because 'this can't possibly be as bad as THAT', and we stop trying to repent.

Would you say the same thing if someone condemned a sin?

if we were discussing it without pictures and because someone ASKED the question of 'is this a sin?'

if that were the scenario here, then no, I would not.

Discussing that lying is a sin....is a drastically different prospect than showing a picture of someone, saying they are a liar and then trying to re-abstract the discussion away from that person.

By the very nature of having -shown- people precisely WHO you mean when you continue to discuss how much lying is a dreadful sin, you are judging the person, not the sin.

And since I myself am a sinner, I have absolutely no right to go around calling other humans sinners. My particular sins are between me, God and my Priest, just as yours are....

I do not feel that this changes just because the other party is not Orthodox.

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All opinions expressed by myself are quite tragically my own, and not those of any other poster or wall hangings.

"For, by its immensity, the divine substance surpasses every form that our intellect reaches. Thus we are unable to apprehend it by knowing what it is. Yet we are able to have some knowledge of it by knowing what it is not." - St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, I, 14.

You don't really hope they "find Jesus." Your posts following that one made it clear that you see them with nothing but contempt and judgement. You were using that lovely language of Christian-ese to make a judgement on them. You have no clue as to whether or not they are Christian. You assume they are not. It is quite possible they are closer to living a Christian life than you are. If you want to judge/condemn them, at least have the integrity not to involve Christ in it. Because you are a sinner right along with them. And you are in need of "finding Jesus" just as much as they are.

There is nothing inconsistent with an Orthodox view of salvation in my post. You are Orthodox, right? No one is "saved." We are being saved. You know what theosis is, right? You have heard of the Jesus prayer?

There is nothing inconsistent with an Orthodox view of salvation in my post. You are Orthodox, right? No one is "saved." We are being saved. You know what theosis is, right? You have heard of the Jesus prayer?

Are you sure you are in the right thread talking to the right person, because you are in your own conversation.

Cute cartoon, but it doesn't really apply to the thread. Well, unless you want to make a point of how hypocritical the proponents to normalize homosexuality are.

And this is where we agree, Kerdy. I don't like to tolerate another's culture either. I don't think the gays should be asking the heteros to be more tolerant of them, there needs to be real struggle to get over that inequality and to be emancipated from it.

If you have great argument on how the homosexuals are destroying the World, then you should have a good reason to risk your life in protecting it, no?

I'd rather be slaughtered for my level of "intolerance" than wind up in a situation where I have to be tolerant of cultures I despise.

That's just me though.

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“There is your brother, naked, crying, and you stand there confused over the choice of an attractive floor covering.”

You don't really hope they "find Jesus." Your posts following that one made it clear that you see them with nothing but contempt and judgement. You were using that lovely language of Christian-ese to make a judgement on them. You have no clue as to whether or not they are Christian. You assume they are not. It is quite possible they are closer to living a Christian life than you are. If you want to judge/condemn them, at least have the integrity not to involve Christ in it. Because you are a sinner right along with them. And you are in need of "finding Jesus" just as much as they are.

I don't know Quinault. I'm tired of hearing the above from Christians. Did God not judge/condemn the sodomites and whatever perversions man did in the OT? Are we not called to be like God?

To be frank I don't see how Christians can be accepting "tolerating" of this.

If you care about what I think, I think the transgender couple never got their sexual needs met as children. They are confused teens. What did Freud say about polymorphous perversion? And I thought castration was sort of repressed.

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“There is your brother, naked, crying, and you stand there confused over the choice of an attractive floor covering.”

Our righteous indignation over the sins of others, makes us start ignoring our own, because 'this can't possibly be as bad as THAT', and we stop trying to repent.

Err what? I can recognize the sins of others just as well as my own. But people on here only recognize certain sins and ignore others.

I'd rather point out stuff that actually causes sin, which is worse than the sin itself IMO. You'd think if corporate greed causes a multitude of sins, which it does, we'd try to put an end to that. With Global Capitalism further gentrifying poor areas, you will have to sin in order to survive. I'd rather tackle the former so the later doesn't happen.

Ain't nobody rationalizing their sins in comparison to someone else, so that can't be a criticism against Kerdy.

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“There is your brother, naked, crying, and you stand there confused over the choice of an attractive floor covering.”

Discussing that lying is a sin....is a drastically different prospect than showing a picture of someone, saying they are a liar and then trying to re-abstract the discussion away from that person.

By the very nature of having -shown- people precisely WHO you mean when you continue to discuss how much lying is a dreadful sin, you are judging the person, not the sin.

And since I myself am a sinner, I have absolutely no right to go around calling other humans sinners. My particular sins are between me, God and my Priest, just as yours are....

I do not feel that this changes just because the other party is not Orthodox.

Pure ideology.

You think you can be insular from the rest of the population by only confessing your own sins to God and your priest, but you are very much involving the other "sinners" and have already judged them. You can't exist in this realm of only believing your sins are your own and not including everyone else in that. You've already made a judgement on them with "no" judgement at all.

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“There is your brother, naked, crying, and you stand there confused over the choice of an attractive floor covering.”

Cute cartoon, but it doesn't really apply to the thread. Well, unless you want to make a point of how hypocritical the proponents to normalize homosexuality are.

And this is where we agree, Kerdy. I don't like to tolerate another's culture either. I don't think the gays should be asking the heteros to be more tolerant of them, there needs to be real struggle to get over that inequality and to be emancipated from it.

If you have great argument on how the homosexuals are destroying the World, then you should have a good reason to risk your life in protecting it, no?

I'd rather be slaughtered for my level of "intolerance" than wind up in a situation where I have to be tolerant of cultures I despise.

That's just me though.

What you just posted also has nothing to do with anything I stated. Over react much?

You don't really hope they "find Jesus." Your posts following that one made it clear that you see them with nothing but contempt and judgement. You were using that lovely language of Christian-ese to make a judgement on them. You have no clue as to whether or not they are Christian. You assume they are not. It is quite possible they are closer to living a Christian life than you are. If you want to judge/condemn them, at least have the integrity not to involve Christ in it. Because you are a sinner right along with them. And you are in need of "finding Jesus" just as much as they are.

I don't know Quinault. I'm tired of hearing the above from Christians. Did God not judge/condemn the sodomites and whatever perversions man did in the OT? Are we not called to be like God?

To be frank I don't see how Christians can be accepting "tolerating" of this.

If you care about what I think, I think the transgender couple never got their sexual needs met as children. They are confused teens. What did Freud say about polymorphous perversion? And I thought castration was sort of repressed.

Not exactly my point. My point is that saying you hope someone "finds Jesus," then going on to rake them over the coals is simply awful. I don't care if people judge necessarily. That is somewhat normal/natural. Just don't wrap it up in Christian-ese.

Does that statement "I hope they find Jesus" make any sense to anyone not familiar with both the English language and Protestantism? Because in the context of his other posts in this thread, it looks like an accusation rather than a genuine hope/prayer to me, and I speak English and grew up Protestant.